Link to front page story
Link to poor quality quicktime of event
atot thread announcing flashmob
atot thread describing flash mob
Their watches synchronized, about 75 young professionals swarmed through the doors of the Books-a-Million store on Dupont Circle at precisely 7:28 p.m. on Tuesday.
They drifted to the magazine racks and grabbed copies of GQ, Out, Budget Travel, PC World and Modern Bride.
Six minutes later, everyone swapped magazines and began to read aloud. Sixty seconds later, they cheered and high-fived as puzzled customers stared. Then the pack walked back out the doors and dispersed onto the surrounding streets.
This was not a Washington protest. This was a "flash mob," the latest fad among the digitally connected, people eager for whimsy in this summer of suicide bombers and war, looking for a chance to do something wacky.
Like eating bananas in a department store in Berlin. Or banging their shoes on the street in Sao Paulo. Or swarming the student store at Harvard University to ask for a card for a friend named Bill.
Don't try to get the point.
"There is no point," said Tom Grow, a Florida-based Web developer who is attempting to become the official historian of flash mobs by documenting the craze at www.mobproject.com. "It's catching on mostly because of the spontaneity. With world events the way they are, people look at it as an escape. It's just for fun."
Flash mobs work like this: Someone e-mails participants to meet at a designated place and time. As they show up, mobbers get more detailed instructions about what "act" the group will perform. Some mobs also advertise in advance at www.flocksmart.com, where more than 100 planned flash mobs, from London to Virginia Beach, were listed yesterday.
Washington, the home of multi-page, single-thought regulations, has been slow to "get" flash mobs. In New York, the fad's unverified but widely accepted birthplace, the cognoscenti have declared the trend dead, two months after it started.
At a flash mob last week at Union Station, only eight people turned out to chant "tick-tock" underneath a giant clock. Not even a homeless man standing nearby with his paper cup looked over.
Lloyd McCoy Jr., a 24-year-old University of Maryland graduate student, organized one of the first, albeit small, local flash mobs two weeks ago -- a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells" rang through the summer night at Dupont Circle.
"It was just so hilarious," McCoy said. "People stopped in their tracks. People were dumbstruck. And then we just dispersed. This is a city where there are a lot of weirdos, but we really got them.
"It's only going to get better," he said. "This isn't going to be one of those summer trends that fade. This momentum is just so great."
The reach of a single flash mob, by its nature, does not draw wide attention. At the bookstore Tuesday, perhaps a dozen customers were witnesses, and most had no idea what they saw.
"I can't even get to the magazines," said Quan Johnson, a 28-year-old medical student at Howard University who arrived in Washington five days ago from North Carolina. "All of a sudden you hear this drone and it was just really bizarre." She walked away, shaking her head.
Mobbers say they are trying to be clandestine.
"Are we supposed to be talking to you?" 22-year-old Corinne DePersis, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, asked a reporter while waiting on a Dupont Circle bench.
Elizabeth Seiver, a fellow NIH researcher, said she read news articles about the flash mobs in New York and thought they sounded "fun and very existential."
"Our society is so fragmented anymore," said Seiver, 22, who was dressed in athletic shorts and a blue T-shirt with her last name printed on the back. "This brings people together."
Roosh, as he calls himself, was the organizer of the Tuesday mob. He is a 24-year-old microbiologist, according to his Web site. He would not reveal any further details about himself, including his real name. He invited mobbers to sign up on his Web site to get instructions about mob events. But he told a Yahoo message group last week that he deleted "suspicious" e-mail addresses of suspected journalists.
"I figure if the media gets involved, then maybe it won't be so secret and cool," he said in a post to the group.
Flash mobs happen in a flash by design. Stay any longer and the cops could show up. Flash mobbers are not looking to get arrested. Roosh and fellow organizers, who identified themselves by wearing sunglasses and carrying green and orange balloons Tuesday night, quickly ditched them when they spotted squad cars.
A D.C. police spokesman said flash mobbers could be arrested for unlawful entry to a business if they linger after a proprietor asks them to leave or quiet down.
But at Books-a-Million, two store clerks merely looked amused.
"This is so exciting," clerk Molly McArdle said. "I just hope they put the magazines back when they are finished."
Link to poor quality quicktime of event
atot thread announcing flashmob
atot thread describing flash mob
Their watches synchronized, about 75 young professionals swarmed through the doors of the Books-a-Million store on Dupont Circle at precisely 7:28 p.m. on Tuesday.
They drifted to the magazine racks and grabbed copies of GQ, Out, Budget Travel, PC World and Modern Bride.
Six minutes later, everyone swapped magazines and began to read aloud. Sixty seconds later, they cheered and high-fived as puzzled customers stared. Then the pack walked back out the doors and dispersed onto the surrounding streets.
This was not a Washington protest. This was a "flash mob," the latest fad among the digitally connected, people eager for whimsy in this summer of suicide bombers and war, looking for a chance to do something wacky.
Like eating bananas in a department store in Berlin. Or banging their shoes on the street in Sao Paulo. Or swarming the student store at Harvard University to ask for a card for a friend named Bill.
Don't try to get the point.
"There is no point," said Tom Grow, a Florida-based Web developer who is attempting to become the official historian of flash mobs by documenting the craze at www.mobproject.com. "It's catching on mostly because of the spontaneity. With world events the way they are, people look at it as an escape. It's just for fun."
Flash mobs work like this: Someone e-mails participants to meet at a designated place and time. As they show up, mobbers get more detailed instructions about what "act" the group will perform. Some mobs also advertise in advance at www.flocksmart.com, where more than 100 planned flash mobs, from London to Virginia Beach, were listed yesterday.
Washington, the home of multi-page, single-thought regulations, has been slow to "get" flash mobs. In New York, the fad's unverified but widely accepted birthplace, the cognoscenti have declared the trend dead, two months after it started.
At a flash mob last week at Union Station, only eight people turned out to chant "tick-tock" underneath a giant clock. Not even a homeless man standing nearby with his paper cup looked over.
Lloyd McCoy Jr., a 24-year-old University of Maryland graduate student, organized one of the first, albeit small, local flash mobs two weeks ago -- a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells" rang through the summer night at Dupont Circle.
"It was just so hilarious," McCoy said. "People stopped in their tracks. People were dumbstruck. And then we just dispersed. This is a city where there are a lot of weirdos, but we really got them.
"It's only going to get better," he said. "This isn't going to be one of those summer trends that fade. This momentum is just so great."
The reach of a single flash mob, by its nature, does not draw wide attention. At the bookstore Tuesday, perhaps a dozen customers were witnesses, and most had no idea what they saw.
"I can't even get to the magazines," said Quan Johnson, a 28-year-old medical student at Howard University who arrived in Washington five days ago from North Carolina. "All of a sudden you hear this drone and it was just really bizarre." She walked away, shaking her head.
Mobbers say they are trying to be clandestine.
"Are we supposed to be talking to you?" 22-year-old Corinne DePersis, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, asked a reporter while waiting on a Dupont Circle bench.
Elizabeth Seiver, a fellow NIH researcher, said she read news articles about the flash mobs in New York and thought they sounded "fun and very existential."
"Our society is so fragmented anymore," said Seiver, 22, who was dressed in athletic shorts and a blue T-shirt with her last name printed on the back. "This brings people together."
Roosh, as he calls himself, was the organizer of the Tuesday mob. He is a 24-year-old microbiologist, according to his Web site. He would not reveal any further details about himself, including his real name. He invited mobbers to sign up on his Web site to get instructions about mob events. But he told a Yahoo message group last week that he deleted "suspicious" e-mail addresses of suspected journalists.
"I figure if the media gets involved, then maybe it won't be so secret and cool," he said in a post to the group.
Flash mobs happen in a flash by design. Stay any longer and the cops could show up. Flash mobbers are not looking to get arrested. Roosh and fellow organizers, who identified themselves by wearing sunglasses and carrying green and orange balloons Tuesday night, quickly ditched them when they spotted squad cars.
A D.C. police spokesman said flash mobbers could be arrested for unlawful entry to a business if they linger after a proprietor asks them to leave or quiet down.
But at Books-a-Million, two store clerks merely looked amused.
"This is so exciting," clerk Molly McArdle said. "I just hope they put the magazines back when they are finished."
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